The Braes o' Balquhidder. A novel

Chapter I. Chapter XXI

CHAPTER I.

Jack was ' too handsome by half.' So everyone at home, save his cautious father, said ; while a doting mother and a most affectionate sister would have utterly spoiled him, had that been possible. Dr. Craigie was a remarkably shrewd, clever man of the world, and bad a splendid prac tice amongst the best families of the Northern Metropolis. He and his family moved in one or more of the select higher circles into which Edinburgh Society is so curiously divided. The exclusiveness of these coteries has long puzzled new comers; and still they exist — with a multiplicity of social gradations quite unknown in any other European Capital. What to do with handsome Jack in the way of a pro fession — business being quite out of the question for such an Adonis — had long remained an unsolved pro blem in the busily employed brain of his father.

The family cherished what appeared to be fairly sound expectations in respect of Jack's future, based on cer- A tain pretty plain hints which his only aunt, the childless widow of an Indian judge, had let fall on certain festive occasions when she was present at the Grange, Dr. Craigie's pretty home in the Meadows. The Doctor was by no means an ambitious man, but he, somehow, fell in very easily with the views of his wife and daughter respecting Jack— when the latter should inherit the solid inheritance, all in Consols, of his highly respected aunt. ' Nothing,' said Mrs. Craigie, 'could possibly suit Jack better than the role of a country gentleman : he so en joys that kind of life, and might eventually found a county family with Aunt Flora's money.' Marie Craigie, with the sweetest of smiles playing round her rich, pouting lips, endorsed every word her mother had uttered ; and, with one of those pleading looks which always proved more eloquent than words, concluded by urging her father to let Jack go into training under some of his farmer clients in the Lothians.

Accordingly, in his twentieth year, Jack Craigie be came a pupil of Mr. Romanes, the tenant of Niddry Mains, a farm of some 500 acres situated about ten miles west of Edinburgh. None of the family mentioned this matter to Lady Moncrieff, the Princess Bountiful-to-be, prior to her somewhat sudden departure for the Riviera. She had become very much enfeebled, and rendered extremely irritable, by an acute attack of influenza ; and her medical adviser warned her relatives not to trouble her with any domestic details whatever. What her Ladyship's verdict might then have been on Jack's new departure no one at this date can determine. The Craigies greatly regretted the enforced silence they had to maintain, but resolved to fully acquaint his aunt of the youth's transportation to Niddry Mains as soon as they had intelligence of her convalescence.

However, the not unusual slip between the cup and the lip was made manifest with regard to this intention ; for, within six weeks of the date of her arrival in the sunny South, Lady Moncrieff was enabled to write home, announcing her complete recovery. She was also in a position to intimate, in addition to that pleasing intelligence, her intention to make a thorough tour of Italy in company with a distinguished family whose acquaintance she had made at the Hotel Splendide. ' My address,' she went on to say, ' after leaving Nice, will therefore be uncertain for a few months, though I shall let you know from time to time how we progress, and where, at some point or other, a letter may find me.' The widow was still fair, considerably under fifty, and, really a very comely woman. If not quite so prepossess ing as in her twenty-seventh year, when she became the wife of a rising Chancery barrister — who had migrated from Inverness while yet in his teens — Lady Moncrieff was looked upon as a most desirable addition to Edin burgh Society.

More than one of the unmarried lairds of long lineage, and little else, had cast a longing look at the eligible widow (and her Consols), but she and her friends had always given out that she was not in the marriage-market. We must now make the personal acquaintance of Jack, (who had not as yet become known outside of his own circle by the flattering adjective which afterwards did duty before his baptismal name) as he became installed at Niddry Mains for agricultural training. Standing well on to nearly six feet ; broad of shoulder ; strongly planted on his straight, well developed lower limbs ; and with a very manly look for his age, Jack Craigie, with his curly chesnut-locks, clustering over a well formed massive forehead, and the frank, open look of his bright blue eyes, seemed quite a young Hyperion.

Seldom were his ever mobile features unlit by a smile ; and rarely was there a laugh long missing when he was within hearing. In short, Jack was ' everybody's body,' and his joyous open heart seemed to welcome all comers. Scarcely had he entered on his apprenticeship duties when he became a general favourite, alike with equals and inferiors. No amusement, no game of any kind could be carried out successfully without the assistance and indispensable presence of ' Good, old Jack ' — such being his first bestowed, and familiar cognomen at the Mains. At the same time, Jack rose to his actual work as joyous and gleeful as the lark during the summer ; while neither snow, sleet, nor hail once kept him in bed, or even indoors, on the ' dourest ' winter morning. The first six months of absence from home was occasionally broken into by visits, once a fortnight or so, to the Grange ; and even the Doctor — who had always had some doubt of Jack's ' application ' to any regular employment — began to think the lad had at last nearly turned over the leaf, and was about to make acquaint ance with a new and very promising page of his life journal. ' If anything in the shape of work will ever be settled down to by that boy,' the Doctor more than once re marked, ' it must be of an out-of-door kind.

An office life, for instance, would cause immediate rebellion and flight : of that I feel certain.' Marie and her mother actually gloated over Jack during these fortnightly seasons of re-union. If ever a youth ran a chance, and a very likely one, of being downright spoiled, th.nt youth was Jack Craigie. Every possible dainty that could be invented between Marie and the cook, was in readiness against these home comings ; and no bedroom was ever so daintily adorned with nick-nacks and flowers as that bright attic to which the youth still gave the preference. It had been his from early boyhood ; and closely associated with fishing, bird-nesting, tennis and cricket : for Jack, much against the wish of his parents, would make his dormitory the home of all and sundry the be longings of his favourite pursuits.

He was just the 'breezy' kind of youth that life at Niddry Mains suited. Mentally and physically, he revelled in it from the very first ; and looked forward to such a future, on a more elevated social plane, as quite an ideal existence. Not without ambition to make some sort of a figure in the world, he thought that quite possible of achievement by a country gentleman. After a silence of nearly 'three months, the widow again communicated with her brother — Dr. Craigie — saying she had found her friends, Prince Caroli and his sister, charming people : that they had invited her to spend the summer with them at a family seat near Flor ence ; and she requested her sister-in-law to send her all the Edinburgh news to that address.

Chapter II

Mrs. Craigie, a born gossip, and quite fitted to edit a mild Society journal, did not fail to furnish Lady Mon crieff with every morceaux, every choice tit-bit of in offensive scandal, together with a great amount of intelligence in general, arising out of the sayings and doings of the ' Circle ' in which they (the Craigies) and their more intimate friends moved. Jack's adoption of a country life, for the nonce, was also duly chronicled ; but no allusion, however delicate, did the worthy and cautious lady make to the reasons which had led to the youth's adoption of such an un professional calling. She well knew the length of her own tether ; and felt that any direct assumption of Jack's heirship to his aunt's Consols would be more likely to end in a fiasco than a success. In short, though by no means a woman of great reflective powers, she had a somewhat large endowment of good common sense, which formed an excellent sub stitute for intellectual grit.

Spring came ; Summer followed ; and throughout each of these delightful seasons, and up to August, several exchanges of gossipy epistles had passed between Edinburgh and the much lauded suburb of Florence. But neither of these interchanges of feminine cali graphy contained anything of more than passing interest, if we except Mrs. Craigie's wonderment at her sister's lengthened absence. To this she gave expression in a letter posted at the end of July, while the family, Jack included, were having a brief sea-side holiday at vener able St. Andrews. The Doctor was a noted golfer, and considered moderate indulgence in that glorious game, on the borders of the sea, one of the most health-giving exercises of the age. Scarcely, however, had the house in the Meadows been re-inhabited, and before Jack had had time to re pack and be off again to the Mains, when, like a bomb shell, an Italian stamped missive burst into the quiet morning room overlooking the garden, causing a no less frightful than wholly unexpected explosion.

Yet it was only composed of a delicately tinted, and richly embossed envelope, with paper en suite within. The explosion, however, arose not out of the unfolding of the deliciously scented materiel, but from the firmly written characters inscribed on the dainty little sheet and under a gilded crest of most imposing magnitude. Thus it read : — 'My ever dear Sister, — You will at length know why I have not returned ere this to dear old Edinburgh, and to my many friends there. The Prince has made me an offer of marriage, together with such a settlement of his money and unentailed property as must have proved more than merely tempting to any woman of half my age. I, of course, had to well weigh such an important communication ; made as it was, latterly, in due legal form, through the Prince's solicitors ; but, really, I did not take a very long rime in formally accepting an offer which I had tacitly accepted a fortnight previously. ' The Prince has, most tienerously, settled this lovely house and adjoining estate on his sister, where she will reside, en permanence, in future ; while we intend passing as much of our time as the seasons will allow at the Caroli Palace in Rome ; one of the noblest and best preserved mementos of the famous City's former great ness. ' Few Italian noblemen of the day can vie with the Prince in intellectual acquirements ; his reading, in several languages, has been most extensive; and as to English, he speaks and writes it as fluently as any Pro fessor in Auld Reekie.

Then as to temper, I have proved him, and that under very trying circumstances, to be a very Nathaniel ! ' But what about his age ? I think I hear you say : — Is he not what we call an old fogie ? ' Not a bit of it, Annie ! He is only forty-five ; three years, fully, younger than I ; fresh-looking, tall, muscular, and robust ; quite an Adonis, I can assure you — and so modest withal. ' Now, dear, I know you will call me a silly old thing, and all that ; but I do think — to use a Scotch saying — that I have fallen on my feet, and that in a very pleasant way. ' After the big turn I had of Indian Society, and the delightful intercourse of an unusually intelligent help mate, life in Edinburgh was beginning to hang more than heavy on my hands ; so much so, that I now look on that horrid Influenza, which sent me off to the Riviera, as a veritable blessing in disguise. ' I was delighted to learn that dear Jack had adopted a practical course of life, at once manly and health giving.

If ever he comes into a fortune — and there's no saying but what he may— I can quite realize him in the guise of a country gentleman ; one of the olden time. ' Give him and Marie, my most affectionate regards, and say we hope to be in Scotland next spring, and trust they will be induced to visit Rome under the wing of the Prince and their loving Auntie. ' Tell Donald he is not to be hard on his only sister, but to make money quickly, retire, and begin to travel with his "wee wifie." You can depend on quite a Scotch welcome from us in the sunny South. 'We shall be married very quietly next week ; first at the Cathedral in Florence, and again at the Protestant Church, where, strange to say, the incumbent, Mr. Rainy, is not only a Scotchman, but a veritable native of Edinburgh. ' You will hear from me as soon as I have got over the fuss which every such ceremony, however quietly gone about, always creates. ' Meantime, I expect, both from you and Donald and the young ones, hearty congratulations and the choicest of good wishes for the Prince and myself.

You must, really, now move into the very " highest circle " of Edin burgh society — only fancy, my dear, you are soon to be the sister of an actual Princess of ancient Rome. I am, my dear Annie, Yours, fondly as ever, Flora.' Dr. Craigie had been the reader of this startling epistle, and went through with his task to the bitter end without any special emphasis, or the slightest comment. When he did finish, however, the explosion of his wrath burst forth thus, and with a will : — ' D d old fool ! ' The Doctor could be both brief and emphatic when he liked, and the short but pregnant deliverance com prised all he had to say for the moment. But the tone of voice in which the objurgation fell from his lips, and the frown which accompanied it, never faded from the memory of any one of the small audience.

Mrs. Craigie, throughout the reading, and at its close, literally buried her head between her knees, and rocked to and fro, as if overwhelmed by the most dreadful of domestic calamities. Marie, on the other hand, betrayed no emotion whatever, but sat out the narration of Aunt Flora's engagement with mouth agape, and distended eyeballs fixed on vacancy. When it had come to a close, however, she turned with a piteous gaze towards Jack — ruined as it seemed to her, for ever — and was amazed to see how coolly he looked on adverse fate. While his irate father crumpled up the offending epistle, and contemptuously threw it amongst the live coals in the grate, all that fell from the lad was a vigor ous, ' by Jove ! ' — as he slapped each knee with a well browned muscular hand. The echoes of Jack's performance woke up his mother from her stupor.

She looked from one to the other, as if questioning their state of mind, and at length ex claimed : ' I would sooner have seen Flora in her shroud than married to any of these intriguing, wretched foreigners. A Prince ! — I hope he may not prove a Prince of utter darkness to the poor misguided thing ! O ! Donald ! Donald ! this is a sad home-coming for all of us — but how bitterly cruel to poor Jack ! ' ' If Jack,' retorted the Doctor, a trifle roughly, ' can't get on in the world without his Aunt's assistance, he must be a much poorer specimen of our common humanity than I take him to be. Whether she has or has not given the Prince a quid pro quo by assigning her Consols to him for their joint use is none of our business: she is at perfect liberty by the Judge's will to dispose of them in any way she thinks proper — he laid no restriction on her.

But at her time of life, and after the evidence she always gave of possessing a large amount of common sense, I must say that this matrimonial escapade — for I can call it nothing else — has shocked me beyond measure. In fact, I begin to think her a victim of amorous hypnotism. Anyhow, Jack and I must have a very " tall talk," as Jonathan says, about his future. I don't suppose he will now care to pursue his studies as an apprentice-pupil of Mr. Romanes at Niddry Mains ; What say you, lad ? ' ' Let me go back, father, for a month, and there think the matter of my future well out by myself. I can get plenty of spare hours of an evening for a quiet stroll and a good long think.' ' All right, Jack,' the doctor kindly responded. ' Just pack off and go west in the morning to your duties ; letting no one be the wiser as to what your expectations were, or are now.' So Jack went back to Niddry Mains on the very day — as it fell out — of Aunt Flora's marriage.

Florence was no doubt en fete on that auspicious occasion, if all that the new Princess had said in her letters were true. Some two months before the foregoing contretemps came about, our hero had made the acquaintance of a young artist who was lodging at an adjoining farm ; and latterly, a very friendly intimacy had sprung up between them. THE BRAES O' BALQUHIDDER. To Donald Leslie, his new friend, Jack — notwithstanding his father's caution — confided everything regarding his former prospects and present unsettled position. This frankness of disposition — indulged in to a fault — was another of Jack's ' loose screws,' as his father termed them. Fortunately, however, in this instance, he had not given away his confidence for nought. Leslie was the son of a well-known sculptor, an R.S.A., whose works commanded a high price; and well endowed with a homely, but not the less useful kind of ' wut ' and wisdom.

Jack, who had taken great interest in the progress of more than one of his friend's pictures, venturing upon a criticism now and again, and even giving a modest hint of how a decided improvement might be consum mated, met with the kindest consideration from Leslie when his case had been put before him. ' Have you ever,' the artist enquired, ' tried your hand at painting ? You seem to know almost as much as ever I knew at your age of the rudiments of pictorial art.' ' I never,' responded Jack, ' had a brush in my hand. Miss Douglas gave me many lessons in pen and pencil drawing, but beyond the " black and white," in which she declared I had made my mark, no further Art pro gress has been achieved by me. You see, just as she and I parted company, the rage for yachting drove everything else out of my head ; and when cousin Tom and I returned from a three month's cruise, I had quite forgotten all about my drawing lessons.' ' Be that as it may,' Leslie rejoined, ' you have got more than a mere aptitude for Art, especially for figure subjects, and were I in your place that would be my destination in the way of a profession.

Just think what prizes in life's lottery have been drawn by Faed, Pettie, Orchardson, and others; not to mention my own modest progress. Literature is not in it as regards quick money, especially in genre subjects. Neither is the brain-labour half so worrying, or wearing, as word-weaving entails. Good old Hory MacCulloch picked up all the material for his glorious pictures while rambling through the Western Isles, and living the life of a rollicking tourist for ever on the wing. Then Normandy and Spain have been quite El Dorados for others, especially those who were adepts at figure illustrations. They left compara tively little to do indoors : only the extension of their finished studies on larger canvas, and the necessary touch-up for exhibition. With the Impressionists I have never had any sympathy.

To me the School is but an excuse for sloppy handling — for idling — not serious work. However, the outcomes of the fad are more or less patronized by certain collectors with more money than brains ; and where the cash-carcase is, there also will be the carrion to clean its bones.' THE BRAES O' BALQUHIDDER. To this pregnant deliverance of his friend's views, Jack lent a most attentive ear ; though at its close he did not immediately deliver his own mind. They were seated on a grassy hillock, finely coloured by rich bell heather ; and the agriculturist-in-embryo went on relentlessly plucking off, and scattering about the bright spoils of his busy fingers for quite five minutes after Leslie had brought his remarks to a termination. Suddenly pulling himself together, and looking rue fully at the floral exhibition with which his destructive digits had strewed the grass, Jack gazed steadfastly in his companion's face, extended his hand, and, meeting with a hearty grip in return to his own, said : — ' I must think it over, Leslie.

I told the guv'nor I would have a few long thinks over my future. But I fear you are flattering me, all out of commiseration for the present unlucky state of my stars. Once I was dead on the Navy, that was after our long cruise. Then I got quite as dead on to agriculture ; and now, if I make an attempt to become a knight of the brush, don't you think I shall have all the world and his wife laughing at me as a Will-o-the-Wisp ? ' ' Let them laugh and be hanged to them,' was the immediate response. ' I suppose you have some of these black and white sketches at home still ? ' ' Oh, Marie— that's my sister — has quite a ponderous portfolio of them which she treasures as if they were original Rembrandts or Albert Durers. For myself, I have not seen one of them for more than a year.' ' Do let me have a look at them on Monday,' replied Leslie. ' You say you are going home to-day and will return then.

Or, if you don't mind me dropping in at the Grange on Sunday — I can look in after dinner — we can then go over them together. But perhaps your people are thin-skinned on the matter of Sunday obser vance, and don't receive on that day.' ' Not a bit of it,' responded Jack, ' my father is all the other way — most Doctors I find are — and he rather cul tivates a quiet Sunday chat with some of his friends who think well before they speak. You come in about five o'clock tea — we dine early on the day of rest for the sake of the servants — and afterwards we can have my dormitor)-, if you don't mind, all to ourselves. I shall have the drawings there ; a few weeds and cutties, and a beaker of " bitter." Will that programme suit ?' ' Perfectly, Jack ; I will be with you at the social hour on Sabbath, till then, au revoir, my boy.' Thus, and with another hearty grip, the friends parted.

Chapter III

That eventful Sabbath — for such it proved to Jack and his friends — came and went ; big with important issues for the future of our hero, his sister Marie, and his friend Leslie. The latter had been more than surprised, stunned in fact, by the proofs of high artistic skill — far beyond anything in the way of mere ' promise,' which his young host's well filled Scrap-book contained. Here there was something of Wilkie, a little of Tom Faed, and even an inkling of John Leech. Then came touches akin to Rembrandt in strong light and shade — marvellous chiaro-oscuro — in short, something resembling each of the styles affected by these masters, but not a vestige of servile imitation. Therefore, when Leslie went home that night, he kept his father up to the small hours, discoursing over the ' find ' he had made at the Grange — a veritable genius discovered in their midst.

Young Leslie's dissertation was accompanied by proofs which bore out to the full all that the ardent champion of his newly-made friend advanced ; and it required no greater effort than that displayed by sincere fervour, to impress the indubitable fact on so severe an art-critic as his gifted father. The eminent R.S.A. saw at a glance that Jack's drawings were not only far above the average productions of very clever pupils, but the outcome of a special gift, equally imbued with original power and versatility. ' This lad,' he said to his son, after he had examined half a dozen of mere sketches, ' seems quite a Garrick of the pen and pencil. If ever he goes in for oils, and has a good eye for colour, he will be head and shoulders above many of our rising genre men.' The outcome of that evening's sitting in Mr. Leslie's sanctum was the transference of Jack from Niddry Mains to the Meadows, and his daily attendance at the studio of a well-known training artist in the near vicinity.

The Doctor winced a little when the younger Leslie put before him all that his father had said and prophe sied regarding Jack's ' gift ; ' for he did not know, to his cost, how many special gifts his wife and daughter had already discovered in the young hopeful. But as there was a break just about expiring in the agreement with Mr. Romanes, he elected to take advantage of it (the Consols having retired to a respectable distance), and let the lad have a try at a profession which numbered in its ranks so many eminent fellow-countrymen. There had been yet another outcome of that same eventful Sunday evening, having Bob Leslie and Marie Craigie for its central figures. The young painter had been invited to stay to early supper ; did so; and supped on something more than the substantials which were always to be found on the Doctor's hospitable and almost open table on the Sabbath.

In short, Bob Leslie fell over head and ears in love with his host's daughter at first sight : the old, old story. Marie was not nearly so inflammable as her swain ; but neither was she invulnerable to his unconcealed attentions, in very small things, on the occasion of their first meeting. She, nevertheless, managed to sleep the sleep awarded to the living just throughout the succeed ing night, and on till morning, awaking then with a pleasantly confused impression that something unusual had happened on the night previous. Her first attempts at ' thinking,' proved she was quite at a loss to conceive exactly what that 'something' was; but before getting out of bed, the full consciousness of what had fallen from young Leslie's lips, and been con veyed by his eloquent eyes, dawned upon her fully aroused and now unimpaired mental vision.

That the Leslies were quite up to their own grade in society there could be no manner of doubt ; in fact, as ;in R.S.A., and a distinguished one, Mr. Leslie, Senr., could command an entree to the most select circles if he so willed it. Therefore, being so desirable a connection, there would be no objection on the part of her parents if the young gentleman's attentions deepened into some thing more serious. So Marie had thought to herself during breakfast that Monday, and so she continued to think all throughout the week, distinctly emphasising these conclusions after the young gentleman had called for Jack on the Sunday following, and carried him off to meet some chums at a married friend's house. As a matter of fact, the young lady had begun by being slightly receptive, and was now fairly in the toils — a very willing prey.

The next event at the Grange was the delivery of such wedding cards as even the most aristocratic residents of Edinburgh had never received — at all events, not from a near relation. Engraved in gold letters, blazoned with crests, tied together with actual gold threads, perfumed with the chqicest products of the Rimmel of Florence, these souvenirs of the ever to be memorable ceremony were the observed of all observers during Mrs. Craigie's next 'At home.' The Doctor would have willingly consigned them to the flames, as he had the fatal announcement, but since Mrs. Craigie and her daughter had come to know the Leslies, visions of an entree to a yet higher circle of Society appeared by no means impossible, especially to the sister-in-law of an actual Princess. So the cards were exhibited — trotted out so to say — on the gold, actually gold salver which had accompanied them.